DEAR SIR,

      When I first read your late work, purporting to be "a second edition" of your former, it was my decided opinion that it carried its own confutation with it, and therefore did not deserve an answer. Especially, as my reply to your first "Address" remained unanswered, and which virtually answers even your second, although you say, it is "considerably enlarged." From these considerations, aided probably by the influence of that indolent indifference, and culpable neutrality, which courts self-indulgence, while others are expected to lift up the standard against the enemy; I had concluded to let you pass without notice. It is no doubt, the opinion of many that your miserable performance does not deserve an answer, especially, as every argument which it contains has been repeatedly refuted. I have, however, lately concluded that they judged more correctly, who thought that even the weakest reasonings should be exposed, lest they might be imagined to be strong; and that even the most hackneyed arguments should be replied to, lest they might be conceived to be new. Your having likewise assumed to yourself the title of Elder of the "Christian Church;" and the guardianship, as it would seem, of the Christian body in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee; together with the lofty appearance of a Biblical critic,--all combine to bestow upon your labors by association a consequence, which (barely) rescues them from present neglect, though certain it must be, it cannot operate to secure them from future oblivion.

      Your attack being made upon those doctrines of the christian faith, which I conceive to be fundamental, I hold it my duty to expose the weakness of your reasoning, and [3] to bear my testimony aloud, against your doctrine. Between duty to God and to his church, and respect for man, it were criminal to hesitate. The task, indeed, is not without its difficulty. "To seize what is fugitive: to fix that which is ever in the act of change: to chain down the Proteus to one form, and to catch his likeness ere he has shifted to another:--this is certainly a work not easily to be accomplished." I hope I shall be credited, when I declare that I conscientiously believe your sentiments to be of such a heretical stamp and pernicious tendency as to require only to be unmasked in order to be put down.

      To this object, my efforts shall be directed: and so anxious am I to effect this point, which in such a case I conceive to be vital, that it is highly probable I shall expose myself to those imputations which are generally cast upon the liberality and the politeness of the writer, who scruples not to press home truths in a direct manner and without compromise. I am prepared to submit to whatever consequences may follow, so I have the good fortune to accomplish this object. Those pernicious sophistries which are opposed to the fundamental truths of Christianity, should be treated in an undisguised and positive manner. The gentle reader may be indifferent to truth or error; the soft Divine, the downy Doctor and the courtly Controversialist, may combat the most flagitious tenets with serenity; or maintain the most awful of religious truths in a way that misleads the unwary reader into an opinion of their making but little impression on the writer's own heart; but I readily acknowledge, I am not one of those opposers of what I believe to be damnable doctrine, who can reason without earnestness, and confute without warmth. To the good Lord I pray, in the mean time, that I may be preserved from such expressions of fiery resentment and virulent invective that too often find their way into writings of controversialists, a finished specimen of which the public have lately seen, in your angry letter to the Rev. John R. Moreland.

      The work that we now have under consideration presents itself to the world, as a "second edition" of your "Address" to the churches over which you preside, as their ecclesiastical head, and only learned champion. They [4] swallow down your writings, it seems, with great avidity, and after going through a seven year process of digestion, they cry to their Elder again for more, which to him is so gratifying that he speedily sends forth another position, "corrected," in its quality, to make it more palatable, and "considerably enlarged" in its quantity, that they may be more amply supplied. As for your corrections, they are so few and inconsiderable, that it appears scarcely worth the name to call your book a corrected edition; only a few expressions are silently omitted, which exposed the weakness of your argument, and rendered you liable to the merited censure of a candid reader, as well as just animadversions of a literary opponent. Your enlargements, I was glad to see for several reasons. You are less disguised: error, the higher it rises, and the more it accumulates, the more likely, it is to fall by its own weight; and moreover, our reproach is measurably taken away, by either the acknowledgments, or silence, of many of your adherents, who accused us of slander and misrepresentation, when we charged their leaders with holding such errors.

      In attempting to expose the fallacy of your sentiments, and the weakness of your arguments, I shall consider myself at liberty to make a free use of your former productions; without wholly confining myself to your second edition. I plead justification here from your own declaration, on the fourth page of your introduction. It is in these words: "Yet I am not conscious that the sentiments in general expressed in my former publications are at variance with any expressed in this." Some things "were written unguardedly, in language not sufficiently plain to convey my real meaning:" but this difficulty only seems to affect "opposing brethren;" for "to many," you add, "the language is sufficiently definite and conveys the meaning I designed." To "attach those errors to a man which he has publicly disclaimed; and hold him up to public execration for an expression or sentiment which he has relinquished," you say "argues a want of candor and christian honesty." It does: But the implication comes with an ill grace from you, who informs us, that your former publications contain no sentiments "at variance with any expressed in this." What sentiments have [5] you relinquished?" What "errors" have you "publickly disclaimed?" None. Shall we find it in these words: "If in my first publications I have written any thing contrary to this book, I cordially relinquish them." No: for you express yourself with ambiguity and uncertainty: "If I have written," &c. And in the very next sentence declare: "Yet I am not conscious that the sentiments in general expressed in my former publications are at variance with any expressed in this." The who statement appears to exhibit an entire lack of that explicitness, frankness, and unhesitating ingenuousness, which every honest man, when convinced that he had erred, desires to avow, and openly to manifest. Here we have an intimation of errors disclaimed, and yet there are none acknowledged; of things written unguardedly, and in language not sufficiently plain, and yet plain enough too to express your real meaning; and of sentiments relinquished, and yet none are positively disavowed.

      "In this edition," you say, "I have brought to view some of the doctrines of my brethren, who oppose us. I have taken them, not from individual authors, but from their own professed creeds and standards." Truly, sir, there is not a single fundamental doctrine of our creed, whether expressed in our confession of faith, or in our bibles, against which you have not levelled all your artillery, and industriously endeavoured to demolish the only foundation of our hope. You need not say, "in this edition:" for seven years ago, without provocation, when no pen was stirring against you, and when the most of us thought that you had sunk into oblivion among the hills of Tennessee, you were there plotting, and writing a book of more than a hundred pages, in which you raked together a large portion of the filth of ancient heresies, which you industriously scattered over the the states of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio; and with which, you expected to prostrate those obnoxious creeds and standards, which would not yield to your "simple views," your expanded charity, and which, like Mordecia in the gate, greatly intercepted your march in the high road of happiness and reformation. Pray, sir, who commenced this literary contest? this "war of words," as you are pleased to term it? Let your "Two Letters [6] on Atonement," published seventeen years ago, answer this question. Who, without provocation from any literary opponent whatever, renewed hostilities, after publishing to the world, that he "never expected to appear again as a writer in public?" Your "Address" published seven years ago will dictate the answer. Now, for the hero of a party, a man of war, to set up such a piteous moan, such a complaining of abuse and ill treatment, from bigots, and untempered zealots, as you have done in your prefatory address, which follows your introduction; really exhibits an unmanly aspect; and bears the characteristic marks of puerility and cowardice. In this review, it will be seen, whether it is true that you have taken those doctrines, which you have attempted to expose, from "creeds and standards" only, or whether you have not in your great zeal to complete the work of destruction, invented doctrines, and made sentiments for your opponents to your own liking, and better adapted to your purpose, being more flexible, and promising a speedier triumph over them than over those stubborn creeds and confessions, which have stood the shock of ages, and the imbecile attacks of enemies of every description.

      That this may not appear a groundless censure, take the following instance out of many: You make us to say, "that God has not lost his right to command, though we have lost our right to obey." (p. 84.) I challenge you to produce out of any book but your own, especially any written by those whom you oppose, such a sentiment as here charged upon us in the latter member of the quotation. Such a gross, uncouth declaration, you never heard suggested by any minister, or any enlightened member of our church, during the whole period of your connection with them. And you will find it in no acknowledged creed or standard upon earth. That man, by reason of his unholiness and enmity of heart, has no spiritual capacity for any holy exercise (which we believe saving faith to be,) and that by reason of a total want of holy disposition of heart he is morally unable to obey God, are truths we firmly believe. But who ever dreamed, much less said, that because of man's state of depravity, and consequent moral incapacity, that therefore his [7] moral obligation or right to obey God was lost. The rebel angels will ever be unable to love and obey God;--devils cannot love; but, surely, no man in his senses will say, they are not under obligation to love and obey; because their rebellious enmity is the very cause of their inability.

      Other instances of a similar complexion, equally fallacious, and censurable, appear throughout your book; the most of which shall be noticed, in their proper places. You may call this, "strictures on trifles, disregarded by the more intelligent," as often as you please: straws are trifles, but they show which way the wind blows; and if you should forfeit our standing among the intelligent in your estimation, by stricturing on your errors, false criticisms, and misrepresentations, yet I trust we shall have courage enough not to be frightened from our duty, by such a menacing proscription.

      I have entered upon this work with great reluctance. There is no pleasure in being under the necessity of rebutting at almost every step, the sophistries and misrepresentations of an unfair and disingenuous antagonist. It cannot be done honestly and plainly, without incurring the censure of illiberality and hostility. No man can wade after you through the muddy swamp of false theology, erroneous criticism, ill-natured invective, ungenerous insinuations, and unfounded misrepresentations of the doctrines, and sentiments of your opponents, without having some unpleasant feeling, and without being implicated by the unthinking and injudicious with some unjustifiable imputation. I have without hesitation, and without feeling personal animosity, endeavoured to expose your errors on divinity, and your defects as a writer; a liberty I allow to other with regard to myself, if they think proper. The lack of literary leisure and opportunity, as well as competent talent, has, I have no doubt, rendered my work more defective in point of matter and style than it otherwise would have been. In this controversy nothing new as to evidence or argument has been advanced on either side; nor indeed can there be; for the subject has been exhausted long ago. It appears new to those only who have not had opportunity or inclination to attend [8] to the controversy. I write therefore, not for fame:--not for pleasure:--not for your conviction, or the conversion of your devoted followers. But for the edification of the body of Christ; the establishment of the wavering and unsettled; and to intercept if possible the progress of the Arian and Socinian heresies. I might also add, to comply with the earnest request of some of ministerial brethren, and others from various quarters: and likewise to redeem a pledge, which a friend of the cause made for me to the public, by issuing a prospectus without my knowledge, concurrence, or approbation.

[LBWS 3-9]